


dis aliter visum

by seraf



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Body Horror, Claustrophobia, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Mike Lives, Post-Canon, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:20:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23369884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seraf/pseuds/seraf
Summary: ( fate has decided differently. )mike is a creature of an endless sky, and burying him is the worst kind of punishment. the claustrophobia eats at him, even after he shakes the last of the dirt off.
Relationships: Michael "Mike" Crew & Simon Fairchild
Comments: 6
Kudos: 64





	1. Chapter 1

when he’s shot, mike crew is no longer close enough to human for it to kill him. not permanently. though it certainly comes very, _very,_ close - especially when she buries him, his vast-soaring spirit trapped under the dirt, his patron unable to reach him there, unable to bring him back, stuck in a half-conscious kind of purgatory where he has moments of awakeness, of awareness, of a deep kind of _fear_ at the way he is contained, only to slip back under once again, encased in the awful, awful soil - 

when he wakes up, he is falling. 

it’s with a shuddering gasp, inhaling hard enough that it might crack his fractalled ribs, dirt still caught in his eyelashes, under his nails, adherent to his skin. the air enters his lungs in the wrong-right way, not as though he’s on terra firma, but as though he’s falling through the air at thirty thousand feet, and that wakes him up well enough, eyes splitting open to see the beautiful, beautiful sky. 

there’s an ache in his chest. he thinks he missed it. like you might miss someone you loved. 

simon fairchild is there, freefalling next to him with an amused little smile. mike’s head is still pounding, but he thinks he sees dirt under his nails, as well, and he wonders if simon dug him up himself, or got help from one of the others in the extended adoptive family. ‘ seems you got yourself into a bit of a mess, mikey, ‘ he says, and clucks his tongue, shakes his head disapprovingly. ‘ you should have called more, you know. took us awhile to even realize you were missing. ‘ 

mike prefers to be alone, if he’s honest. he was never much of a conversationalist. still, were they not both still falling through that infinite sky, he thinks he could hug simon. 

‘ sorry, ‘ he rasps out, and shudders at the taste of earth in his mouth. he feels like a high schooler again, being admonished for not calling his parents, too busy lost in the way _journal of a plague year_ makes his skin crawl, in the possibility that it could disgust away the lightning-creature following him. ‘ can’t say i was ever any good at keeping in touch. ‘ 

simon fixes him with a playfully stern expression, and wags a finger at him, and mike feels a smile weakly cracking his face. ‘ now, that’s no way to be. ‘ 

‘ from someone who’s friends with peter lukas, i’m not sure you have the right to tell me off, ‘ he replies, folding his arms over his chest, the wind rushing in his ears, and simon _laughs,_ bright and merry. 

‘ peter has his excuses. you’re not planning on leaving us for the _lonely_ , now, are you? ‘ 

mike feels the vast around him, feels the way it turns the tip of his ears numb with the cool rush of the wind. feels that soar in his chest from the free fall, the closest thing he thinks he’s ever felt to _love._ feels the way it embraces him. as though it _missed_ him, all that time spent trapped in the claustrophobic, choking earth. 

‘ no. i don’t think so. ‘ 

* * *

mike crew can’t sleep with sheets on his bed anymore. it’s _cold,_ certainly, some nights where the draft works its way in, caresses his form bare on top of the mattress, but it’s a small price to pay. too often, when he got _back,_ he would wake up, crying out and thrashing, the blankets trapping his limbs to his chest, ribs heaving as he felt, once again, like he was struggling to get out of i-am-too-close. sometimes, there is soil, in between the sheets, and he cannot shake the feeling that it is trying to swallow him again. 

when sleep is hard to come by, on those worst nights, he will close his eyes, and he will let the vast have him. throwing himself once again onto its mercy. it is … it’s a risky thing, of course. if the vast ever decides _he_ is inconsequential, he will fall and fall and fall, and then _stop_ falling. but it is … he’s always heard it’s good to die doing what you love, isn’t it? at least it would be quick. at least he would be enshrouded in a sky that loved him. 

he used to wear scarves, when he was making some effort to keep a low profile. that is something … long of the past. his clothes get looser, thinner, now. blown about by the wind, his chest and scar half-bared. 

he learns to live. cuts his nails past the quick, cuts them until drops of blood begin to well up, so he no longer wakes up with dirt underneath them. feeds before he sleeps, so he might not wake up screaming. spends more time with the fairchilds, makes certain one of them knows where he is. avoids anything with the hunt’s red stench to it like you would avoid victims of the plague. finds a cane that fits his height, for the days where the choking seizes up his bones again. 

in the end, does it help? in the end, does it _matter?_ the problem with being aligned with the vast is that feeling of ultimate _insignificance._ does any of this truly matter? 

he double-checks his will. makes certain he won’t be buried after his death. 

he still wakes up screaming, sometimes. 


	2. Chapter 2

sometimes, these days, he wakes up, and his bones don’t feel hollow. he feels like he can’t move - not in a sleep paralysis way, though that happens occasionally, but in the way where every one of his limbs is heavy, where moving takes all the energy he can muster.

sometimes, these days, he can’t remember what day it is. it’s . . . permissible, of course, they flow into each other, irrelevant and numerous as grains of sand, but he looks out the floor-length window and wishes his brain held onto things like what day of the week it was. 

sometimes, these days, he can still feel the fractals rolling past his skin, gleeful in their distortions, burning with an endless light. 

he sits on the floor of the shower and lets the water run over him until it’s freezing cold and the sun has set some time ago. his skin doesn’t even ripple up in goosebumps. doesn’t even pretend to be alive. 

sleep paralysis again. dreams of never-ending corridors marred with dreams of the soil crushing him alive. he wakes up, unable to move, and chokes down the bile in his throat, the rush of panic at the idea of being crushed once again. 

he drops into the vast. he spends days, weeks, at a time there, just letting himself fall, or immersed in dark water. doesn’t pretend that he’s _safe,_ here, but at least he’s free. 

has he lost momentum? has it been choked out of him? there are still days where he is frantic, almost, unable to stay in place, or days where he almost gorges himself on vertigo, unable to keep still, and sending everyone around him tumbling as he falls in and out of the day. 

and there are days where it’s all he can do to walk up to the roof and sit there, legs hanging over the edge. he’s never been like this before. never - lost himself, like this. 

inertia. objects in motion will _stay_ in motion. his frenetic desperation, tearing through books and powers he didn’t understand, running from what wanted to consume him, turning him into a free-falling creature still in motion. but the buried - it stopped him. crushed him. 

objects at rest will stay at rest. 

he wishes she had killed him. 


End file.
